Thursday, August 23, 2012

In case you didn't know, there's this amazingly perfect horror film called Rosemary's Baby. It's pretty much the greatest horror movie ever made... well, you know, besides Wuhrwuhlf. Oh, and guess what? It was produced by William Castle, which immediately makes gives it a billion extra brownie points in my book.

It also was a part of THE GREATEST DOUBLE FEATURE OF ALL TIME! No, seriously. It was!

Anyways, I don't need to go into the perfectness and importance of Rosemary's Baby, since it's been well documented. What hasn't been well documented, though, is the unimportance and ridiculousness of its 1976 sequel.

Now if I know you (and I think I do), right now you're saying to yourself "THIS CAN'T BE... NO IT'S NOT TRUE... IT'S NOT REAL... IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!"

Well, I hate to break it to you, but yes, there is a sequel to Rosemary's Baby -- the Made-for-TV movie, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby.

Oh yes. This thing really exists. And oh man, is it BAD. Well, maybe I'm being a little harsh on it. I guess it might have been OK-ish and just campy groovy 70s-ness if it had nothing to do with Rosemary's Baby, but the fact that this is supposed to be a continuation of the film, makes it so much worse than you can possibly imagine.

The UK VHS cover

There is at least one... okay, two redeeming factors of this movie. Those two redeeming factors are Ruth Gordon, reprising her Minnie role from the original film, and my favorite movie drunk, Ray Milland, taking over the Roman role for Sidney Blackmer... who wasn't alive anymore. Frowny face.

The film is split up into three parts, or books, or chapters, or whatever-you-wanna-call-em's -- The Book of Rosemary, The Book of Adrian, and The Book of Andrew.

The movie/first book begins right at the end of Rosemary's Baby, with Rosemary (played by Patty Duke) still freaking out about the whole baby being a Satan-baby and what not. She then kidnaps her son Adrian/Andrew away from the Satanic cult. At a bus stop, while Rosemary is on the phone with her husband Guy (George Maharis), Adrian/Andrew gets in a fight with a couple of kids and KILLS TWO OF THEM AND THEIR DOG. What a jerk. In this crazy opening, we also find out that Guy sold his son to the cult in exchange for fame and fortune in Hollywood.

Then, with the help of a Satanized prostitute named Marjean (Tina Louise), the cult catches up with her, and re-kidnaps Adrian/Andrew back from Rosemary, who is sent off in a demon-bus of some sort, driven by nobody to nowhere in particular... and she is never heard from again! In exchange for her taking care of Adrian/Andrew, the cult gives Marjean a crappy casino in the middle of nowhere.

In the second book/part, we see Adrian (played by Stephen McHattie) all grown up and living at the casino with Marjean. He also sings at the casino with his glitter/psychedelic rock band named Captain Nitro and His Acid Kings. Pure genius. Wish I had thought of that band name... dang it.

Adrian/Andrew also has a best friend/scapegoat named Peter, a self-proclaimed Jesus-Freak, who at every opportunity, tries to convert Adrian. Since the next day is Adrian's birthday, his "godparents" and all of their friends are coming to celebrate with him. His godparents, of course, being Minnie and Roman, the heads of the Satanic cult.

Because Adrian is a Satan-baby thing, he keeps having crazy nightmares, so Peter takes him to church, where he freaks out and speeds back to the casino in his Lamborghini, almost killing a bunch of bikers on the way. Back at the casino, his godparents are getting ready to do a seance/sacrifice thing with his father, Guy. To calm Adrian down, Roman offers him a joint.

No, really. He does.

So, after he smokes this joint, he immediately passes out, because that's what always happens when you smoke that Satanized weed. After he passes out, they paint his face like Marcel Marceau and do this crazy devil worship thing which then turns him into, as the script implies, an Alice Cooper-esque glam rocker.

Then, in a trance, he joins the band onstage flipping out and dancing like a madman. The whole band and audience now join Adrian in the trance. The movie then decides we need these nice close-up shots of the band like 7 or 8 times --

Beautiful.

Adrian's friend Peter notices things are going crazy, and tries to stop the band and Adrian by running up on stage and unplugging their instruments. Since the powers of Satan are strong, his Devil generator keeps them going, even with their amplifiers unplugged. FREAKY-DEAKY.

Guy doesn't like what he sees, so he runs out to his limo, but is followed by Peter who then tries to fight him and figure out what the heck is happening. Guy then picks up a downed power line and electrocutes Peter, and Adrian passes out.

PHEW!

That was a long book/chapter/whatever. Now I'd say it's time for a commercial break.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

In our final chapter (THANK GOD), we find Andrew in a mental hospital for the criminally insane, with no memory of how he got there or what happened. We also find out that he has been committed there for murdering Peter. With the help of a caring nurse named Ellen (played by Donna Mills) and some weird therapy where they put wires on cotton balls into his forehead, he magically remembers what happened. He tells Ellen he needs to go find his father and she helps him escape!

Andrew and Ellen hide in a seedy motel, where they stay for the night before going to search for his dad, the real murderer. While hanging out in the room, Ellen gives Andrew a drink... and of course, it's been drugged. Yup. ELLEN IS ONE OF THEM. Like all evil geniuses, she then proceeds to explain what is going to happen -- she is going to have his Satan baby!! GAH!! Then she... well, you know. Ugh.

Eventually, he wakes up and stumbles out of the motel room towards the street. Ellen follows him out there, and Andrew's car starts driving by itself, trying to kill him! He jumps away, over cars and bushes and what-have-you. Then, out of nowhere, the car hits Ellen! The car crashes, and the cops come. Andrew tries to show them that there's nobody in the car, but when they open the door, it's (DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN) GUY!! AND HE'S DEAD!! Andrew is then hauled away by the cops, thinking he's on something.

The film then fades into a doctor's office, where Roman and Minnie find out that their "granddaughter" and her baby are going to be just fine. The camera pans over and... BOOM! It's Ellen, she's still alive, and she's still having that Beelzebaby!!

FADE OUT.

THE END.

But don't change the channel just yet! Over the credits they show pictures of a woman giving birth and when credits end, there is a shot of a crying infant!

THE END.

REALLY.

Spooky, huh?

No, not at all. This thing is just sad. The movie is nowhere near the masterpiece that Rosemary's Baby is. In my opinion, this movie should've just been called Return of the Devil Child or Psychedelic Satan Baby or something. If they just got rid of all the Rosemary stuff, this would be a tolerable, crappy 1970s made-for-TV movie. The Rosemary stuff just brings this thing down. The entire time, you're waiting for some classic creepiness from Minnie and Roman or the claustrophobic feeling of the original film or even the feeling of disorientation, but nope... even with all the hand-held camera stuff, none of what made Rosemary's Baby so great is there.

The screenplay for this movie was written by a guy named Anthony Wilson who, in his spare time, created Banacek! AWESOME.

The film was directed by a guy named Sam O'Steen, who was better known as an editor. In fact, he edited the original Rosemary's Baby, as well as other classics like The Day of the Dolphin, Chinatown, Cool Hand Luke, Catch-22, and The Graduate! Woah!

The script here is pretty similar to the actual movie, with only a few lines and scenes missing, including a bunch of scenes at a Tokyo airport, and a scene of Ellen and Andrew searching Hollywood Blvd for his dad. There also this really really creepy cut line that kind of foreshadows a terrible real-life situation that involved Roman Polanski, the director of the original Rosemary's Baby --

SUPER CREEPY!!!!!!!!

Since you can't find this weird movie on DVD anywhere (and I'm sure it won't be included with the Criterion Collection release of the original film) you can watch this insane Made-for-TV movie here --

And you can download the .PDF of the Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby script HERE!!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Today's record is the soundtrack/compilation from the super cool 60s music TV show, Shindig!

Shindig! was a pretty cool show. Trillions (okay, not trillions but maybe billions) of really popular musicians performed (or lip synced) their hits on the show, and then sold millions of records! Yipee!

Wanna see what it was like? Well, here's The Beach Boys performing "Do You Wanna Dance" on Shindig! while Mike Love dances like a freak.

This soundtrack is pretty groovy too, with some great 60s pop/rock-ness. Pretty much the only big names on this album are Fats Domino, The Impressions, and The Tams, who everybody knows (or at least should know).

Even though those artists are pretty great, my favorite artist on this album is Steve Alaimo. Why? Well, because he starred in a really crappy movie about bikers getting their "kicks" called The Wild Rebels, which, as you can guess, was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. That fact alone makes him go up about 32 notches in my book.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Today's record is the soundtrack to the weird 1969 bikers vs. surfers movie Wild Wheels!

If you can't tell by that amazingly un-groovy cover to the soundtrack, this movie isn't that good. The soundtrack on the other hand, is super groovtastic.

In the movie, these biker people come to Malibu and are all like "HEY MAN, WE WANNA TAKE THIS BEACH!" and the surfer dudes go "NO WAY, BROSKY!". Music, love, action and adventure all take place and hilarity ensues.

Anyways, like most 1960s B-movies that take place near a body of water, this movie includes musical performances by country and rock bands that you probably never heard of before, and most likely won't ever hear from again.

Well, except for Terry Stafford, who was an actual real life musician. He co-wrote and recorded the classic country song "Amarillo By Morning".

For a sample of some of this crazy movie and it's super fun music, check out this clip of The Saturday Revue performing their song "Holiday Rider"!!

Or you can check out this clip from this drabtastically filmed "movie", if you can even call it that. This time, we have the song "I Hear Music" by the 13th Committee! Yippee.

As you can see, the music isn't half bad. The soundtrack definitely stands on its own as a compilation of obscure late 60s country rock/pop. So check it out, yo!